jessica hanson

basketball school: Little Flower Academy (Vancouver) freshman’s future: UBC

In the parlance of her secondfavourite sport, Jessica Hanson has never backed away from setting the bar higher and making a concerted leap to the next level.

That’s because when you study Hanson’s accomplishments through out the course of a brilliant two-sport career at Vancouver’s Little Flower Academy, it’s the perfect way to reference the heights she has hit en route to starring both on the basketball court, as a dynamics coring guard, and on the track, where she rose above the pack as both a jumper and a hurdler.

The photo on this page tells you which sport Hanson ultimately chose. But if you study her extensive athletic resume, one which is highlighted by a combined seven national age-group championships, you can imagine the tug of war she must have waged within herself before committing to a basketball career — one which begins this fall with the UBC Thunderbirds, the same program she once served in as a ball girl.

On the basketball side, she’s a 5-foot-9 guard who has not only competed for B.C. in five national championship tournaments, but who this past March was named the MVP after she led LFA’s Angels to second place at the B.C. senior girls Double A championships.

On the track side, Hanson entered her Grade 12 year as the No. 4-ranked youth high jumper in Canada, having competed at two national championships. She capped her prep career at the B.C. high school championships earlier this month with a silver medal in the high jump, and it’s the combination of her two sports that UBC women’s basketball coach Deb Huband says brings a blend of “agility, quickness and athleticism” that is impossible to miss.

It also makes it hard to call Hanson your typical high school freshman.

“I have learned a lot about my preparation, to be able to trust in it,” she says. “I am not sure anyone can really fully control their emotions. But now I know how to get myself ready for competition.”

She also teases the fact that her track career may not be over yet.

“As far as doing it next year, that hasn’t been officially decided yet,” she says.

Whatever Hanson winds up doing, you just know she’ll keep setting the bar higher each season, because the ball girl has grown into a leading lady.